This year’s NeMLA convention is historic: the organization celebrates five decades of cultivating scholarship and pedagogy in literary studies. Equally historic is the fact that 2019 is an anniversary year for pivotal texts by Black women writers. It marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Broadway debut of Lorraine Hansberry’s critically acclaimed play A Raisin in the Sun (1959), and the fiftieth anniversary of Maya Angelou’s first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969). Moreover, 2019 is also the fortieth anniversary of Octavia Butler’s now canonized fictional slave narrative Kindred (1979).

In this Author-meets-Reader roundtable, Martine Sonnet will discuss her work alongside 3-4 scholars working on French-language filiation narratives. Filiation narratives reflect an effort to recover aspects of one’s family history which were not transmitted to the author. The quest for information, garnered through various possible sources, is then incorporated into the narrative. We invite scholars working either on a filiation narrative subgenre or on Sonnet’s work in particular. Papers may be delivered in French or English.

THEME: Natures, Pictures: Cavendish and Early Modern Science, Technology, and Creativity

Call for Papers

The society welcomes proposals for 20-minute papers on topics related directly or indirectly to the theme, or on any aspects of Cavendish, her work, her family (including William Cavendish, Jane Cavendish, and Elizabeth Cavendish) and her contemporaries, influences, and responses to her work. In particular, we invite panel proposals on the work of Anne Conway and other early modern women scientists and philosophers. Papers may explore, but are not limited to, the following disciplines:

The International Association for Robin Hood Studies (IARHS) invites abstract submissions for its Twelfth Biennial Conference, to be held at the University of Montevallo (Montevallo, AL) from 14-17 May 2019. The theme of the conference is “Outlaw Bodies.”

The purpose of the Southeast Indian Studies Conference is to provide a forum for discussion of the culture, history, art, health and contemporary issues of Native Americans in the Southeast. The conference serves as a critical venue for scholars, students and all persons interested in American Indian Studies in the region.

Faced with ecological disaster and the migratory crisis, what roles can literature, cinema and popular culture play in raising awareness and empowering human beings? This session welcomes contributions in the fields of contemporary francophone literature and cinema that address the problem of violence against wildlife and explore solutions to this violence in a transnational context.